In their respective festive 5-day sale offers, Indian e-commerce firms including industry leaders Flipkart and Amazon have recorded sales of $2 billion across categories such as smartphones, large appliances, and fashion etc, a report said.

Flipkart alone did close to billion its ‘Big Billion Day offer’, said Forrester Research.

In their respective festive 5-day sale offers, Indian e-commerce firms including industry leaders Flipkart and Amazon have recorded sales of $2 billion across categories such as smartphones, large appliances,and fashion etc, a report said. The sales numbers of grown nearly 64 percent in 2018 as against last year, according to a report by RedSeer Consulting. Both Flipkart and Amazon account for 90 percent of online sales.

“The industry witnessed a higher growth this time compared to the last year. This was driven by multiple drivers, key being a larger shopper base from tier II (and beyond) cities,” Red Seer report said. “Affordability and loyalty schemes introduced by e-tailing players also played a huge role in converting the visitors into shoppers,” it added.

Flipkart alone did close to $1 billion its ‘Big Billion Day offer’, said Forrester Research. PTI reported Amazon country head Amit Agarwal saying: “The event exceeded our most aggressive plans across all the categories. More than 80 percent of the new customers came from small towns, and we received orders from 99 percent of the serviceable pin-codes in the country in just four days.”

“Flipkart has recorded over 70 percent share of entire Indian e-commerce market in the five-day Big Billion Day ‘18 sale, matching scale with global marquee retail events,” a Flipkart spokesperson said. It also said, “Gross merchandise value grew 80 percent over the last year, whereas units grew by close to two times year-on-year.”

Last year, top e-commerce firms had claimed to have recorded sales worth $1.5 billion even as GST and demonetisation effects continued to have their lingering effects.